Lord Randolph Churchill to Mr. Moore Bayley.
2 Connaught Place, W.: March 24, 1884.
Dear Sir,—I beg to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of the 22nd inst. In answer to your question as to my views on the rights of contract I beg to inform you that where it can be clearly shown that genuine freedom of contract exists I am quite averse to State interference, so long as the contract in question may be either moral or legal. I will never, however, be a party to wrong and injustice, however much the banner of freedom of contract may be waved for the purpose of scaring those who may wish to bring relief. The good of the State, in my opinion, stands far above freedom of contract; and when these two forces clash, the latter will have to submit. If you will study the course of legislation during the last fifty years, you will find that the Tory party have interfered with and restricted quite as largely freedom of contract as the Liberals have done. With respect to the two leading instances of interference with freedom of contract during the present Parliament, viz. the Irish Land Act and the Agricultural Holdings Act, the Duke of Richmond’s Agricultural Commission and the House of Lords must divide the responsibility for this legislation with Mr. Gladstone’s Government. The latter had it in their power to reject this legislation, and did not do so; the former laid down the principles on which it was founded.
In comparison with legislation of that kind the compulsory conversion of long leaseholds into freeholds in towns, full and ample compensation being paid to the freeholder, is, as I called it in my speech in the House of Commons, ‘a trifling matter.’
You will find the principle of this measure advocated in the British Quarterly Review five years ago (a very orthodox organ of Tory doctrine). You will find the principle again contained in the 65th section of the Conveyancing Law and Properties Act, passed by Lord Cairns in 1881. I may also add that Lord Cairns dealt a very severe blow at the rights of owners of freehold property when he gave to the courts of law power to protect leaseholders from forfeiture for breaches of covenant.
Under all these circumstances I am inclined to think that you will agree with me that all this outcry against the supporters of Mr. Broadhurst’s Bill—this gabble about Socialism, Communism, and Mr. George, &c.—is highly inconsistent and ridiculous, and betrays a prevalence of very deplorable and shocking ignorance as to the extent to which the rights of property can be tolerated, and the relation of the State thereto.
I remain
Yours faithfully,
Randolph S. Churchill.
Lord Randolph Churchill on Temperance.
Private.
2 Connaught Place, W.: November 29, 1888.